Mastery

This confusing tale opens with a group of vampires practicing a nightmarish ritual of ``mastery,'' which includes a technique for sipping the victim's blood like a fine wine. Next we meet Dodge, an unusual and amusing private detective, and several others who are journeying by train across country in 1986, the year of Halley's comet. Little do the passengers know that one of their companions is Austin Blacke, a renegade vampire who doesn't play even by the master vampires' rules. And little do they know that, when the comet hits, they'll take a train ride to San Francisco in 1906, the year of the big earthquake. It takes Dodge the bulk pk of the novel to figure out what's strange about Austin, and by then most of the time travelers have become victims of Austin's gory thirst. The story climaxes in a final showdown between Dodge and Austin. But after all this, will Dodge return to the time period he really desires? Even readers who can wade through the unseemly killings and disjointed narrative will find it hard to care. Wilde is the author of The Suiting. (Sept.)